“An unfinished project : Ibsen and the construction of a modern Chinese consciousness” (Publication, 2000)
Year
2000
Text
Tam, Kwok-kan. An unfinished project : Ibsen and the construction of a modern Chinese consciousness. In : East-West dialogue ; vol. 4, noa 2 (2000). (Ibs109)
Type
Publication
Contributors (1)
Tam, Kwok-kan
(1952-) : Professor, Dekan, School of Arts and Social Sciences, The Open University of Hong Kong
Mentioned People (1)
Ibsen, Henrik
(Skien 1828-1896 Kristiania = Oslo) : Dramatiker, Dichter
Subjects
Literature : Occident : Norway
/
References / Sources
Chronology Entries (5)
| # | Year | Text | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1908 |
Lu, Xun. Mo luo shi li shuo = On the power of Mara poetry. [ID D26228]. [Auszüge]. Lu Xun erwähnt George Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Carlyle, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Walter Scott, John Keats, Friedrich Nietzsche, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Henrik Ibsen [erste Erwähnung], Nikolai Wassil'evich Gogol, Platon, Dante, Napoleon I., Ernst Moritz Arndt, Friedrich Wilhelm III., Theodor Körner, Edward Dowden, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, John Locke, Robert Burns, Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin, Adam Mickiewicz, Sandor Petöfi, Wladimir Galaktionowitsch Korolenko. Lu Xun schreibt : "He who has searched out the ancient wellspring will seek the source of the future, the new wellspring. O my brothers, the works of the new life, the surge from the depths of the new source, is not far off". Nietzsche... Later the poet Kalidasa achieved fame for his dramas and occasional lyrics ; the German master Goethe revered them as art unmatched on earth or in heaven... Iran and Egypt are further examples, snapped in midcourse like well-ropes – ancient splendor now gone arid. If Cathay escapes this roll call, it will be the greatest blessing life can offer. The reason ? The Englishman Carlyle said : "The man born to acquire an articulate voice and grandly sing the heart's meaning is his nation's raison d'être. Disjointed Italy was united in essence, having borne Dante, having Italian. The Czar of great Russia, with soldiers, bayonets, and cannon, does a great feat in ruling a great tract of land. Why has he no voice ? Something great in him perhaps, but he is a dumb greatness. When soldiers, bayonets and cannon are corroded, Dante's voice will be as before. With Dante, united ; but the voiceless Russian remains mere fragments". Nietzsche was not hostile to primitives ; his claim that they embody new forces is irrefutable. A savage wilderness incubates the coming civiliization ; in primitives' teeming forms the light of day is immanent... Russian silence ; then stirring sound. Russia was like a child, and not a mute ; an underground stream, not an old well. Indeed, the early 19th century produced Gogol, who inspired his countrymen with imperceptible tear-stained grief, compared by some to England's Shakespeare, whom Carlyle praised and idolized. Look around the worls, where each new contending voice has its own eloquence to inspire itself and convey the sublime to the world ; only India and those other ancient lands sit motionless, plunged in silence... I let the past drop here and seek new voices from abroad, an impulse provoked by concern for the past. I cannot detail each varied voice, but none has such power to inspire and language as gripping as Mara poetry. Borrowed from India, the 'Mara' – celestial demon, or 'Satan' in Europe – first denoted Byron. Now I apply it to those, among all the poets, who were committed to resistance, whose purpose was action but who were little loved by their age ; and I introduce their words, deeds, ideas, and the impact of their circles, from the sovereign Byron to a Magyar (Hungarian) man of letters. Each of the group had distinctive features and made his own nation's qualities splendid, but their general bent was the same : few would create conformist harmonies, but they'd bellow an audience to its feet, these iconoclasts whose spirit struck deep chords in later generations, extending to infinity... Humanity began with heroism and bravado in wars of resistance : gradually civilization brought culture and changed ways ; in its new weakness, knowing the perils of charging forward, its idea was to revert to the feminine ; but a battle loomed from which it saw no escape, and imagination stirred, creating an ideal state set in a place as yet unattained if not in a time too distant to measure. Numerous Western philosophers have had this idea ever since Plato's "Republic". Although there were never any signs of peace, they still craned toward the future, spirits racing toward the longed-for grace, more committed than ever, perhaps a factor in human evolution... Plato set up his imaninary "Republic", alleged that poets confuse the polity, and should be exiled ; states fair or foul, ideas high or low – these vary, but tactics are the same... In August 1806 Napoleon crushed the Prussian army ; the following July Prussia sued for peace and became a dependency. The German nation had been humiliated, and yet the glory of the ancient spirit was not destroyed. E.M. Arndt now emerged to write his "Spirit of the Age" (Geist der Zeit), a grand and eloquent declaration of independence that sparked a blaze of hatred for the enemy ; he was soon a wanted man and went to Switzerland. In 1812 Napoleon, thwarted by the freezing conflagration of Moscow, fled back to Paris, and all of Europe – a brewing storm – jostled to mass its forces of resistance. The following year Prussia's King Friedrich Wilhelm III called the nation to arms in a war for three causes : freedom, justice, and homeland ; strapping young students, poets, and artists flocked to enlist. Arndt himself returned and composed two essays, "What is the people's army" and "The Rhine is a great German river, not its border", to strengthen the morale of the youth. Among the volunteers of the time was Theodor Körner, who dropped his pen, resigned his post as Poet of the Vienne State Theater, parted from parents and beloved, and took up arms. To his parents he wrote : "The Prussian eagle, being fierce and earnest, has aroused the great hope of the German people. My songs without exception are spellbound by the fatherland. I would forgot all joys and blessings to die fighting for it ! Oh, the power of God has enlightened me. What sacrifice could be more worthy than one for our people's freedom and the good of humanity ? Boundless energy surges through me, and I go forth ! " His later collection "Lyre and sword" (Leier und Schwert), also resonates with this same spirit and makes the pulse race when one recites from it. In those days such a fervent awareness was not confined to Körner, for the entire German youth were the same. Körner's voice as the voice of all Germans, Körner's blood was the blood of all Germans. And so it follows that neither State, nor Emperor, nor bayonet, but the nation's people beat Napoleon. The people all had poetry and thus the poets' talents ; so in the end Germany did not perish. This would have been inconceivable to those who would scrap poetry in their devotion to utility, who clutch battered foreign arms in hopes of defending hearth and home. I have, first, compared poetic power with rice and beans only to shock Mammon's disciples into seeing that gold and iron are far from enough to revive a country ; and since our nation has been unable to get beyond the surface of Germany and France, I have shown their essence, which will lead, I hope, to some awareness. Yet this is not the heart of the matter... England's Edward Dowden once said : "We often encounter world masterpieces of literature or art that seem to do the world no good. Yet we enjoy the encounter, as in swimming titanic waters we behold the vastness, float among waves and come forth transformed in body and soul. The ocean itself is but the heave and swell of insensible seas, nor has it once provided us a single moral sentence or a maxim, yet the swimmer's health and vigor are greatly augmented by it"... If everything were channeled in one direction, the result would be unfulfilling. If chill winter is always present, the vigor of spring will never appear ; the physical shell lives on, but the soul dies. Such people live on, but hey have lost the meaning of life. Perhaps the use of literaure's uselessness lies here. John Stuart Mill said, "There is no modern civilization that does not make science its measure, reason its criterion, and utility its goal". This is the world trend, but the use of literature is more mysterious. How so ? It can nurture our imagination. Nurturing the human imagination is the task and the use of literature... Matthew Arnold's view that "Poetry is a criticism of life" has precisely this meaning. Thus reading the great literary works from Homer on, one not only encounters poetry but naturally makes contact with life, becomes aware of personal merits and defects one by one, and naturally strives harder for perfection. This effect of literature has educational value, which is how it enriches life ; unlike ordinary education, it shows concreteley a sense of self, valor, and a drive toward progress. The devline and fall of a state has always begun with is refusal to heed such teaching... [The middle portion of this essay is a long and detailed description of Lu Xun's exemplary Mara poets, including Byron, Shelley, Pushkin, Lermontov, Michiewicz, Slowacki and Petöfi]. In 18th-century England, when society was accustomed to deceit, and religion at ease with corruption, literature provided whitewash through imitations of antiquity, and the genuine voice of the soul could not he heard. The philosopher Locke was the first to reject the chronic abuses of politics and religion, to promote freedom of speech and thought, and to sow the seeds of change. In literature it was the peasant Burns of Scotland who put all he had into fighting society, declared universal equality, feared no authority, nor bowed to gold and silk, but poured his hot blood into his rhymes ; yet this great man of ideas, not immediately the crowd's proud son, walked a rocky outcast road to early death. Then Byron and Shelley, as we know, took up the fight. With the power of a tidal wave, they smashed into the pillars of the ancien régime. The swell radiated to Russia, giving rise to Pushkin, poet of the nation ; to Poland, creating Mickiewicz, poet of revenge ; to Hungary, waking Petéfi, poet of patriotism ; their followers are too many to name. Although Byron and Shelley acquired the Mara title, they too were simply human. Such a fellowship need not be labeled the "Mara School", for life on earth is bound to produce their kind. Might they not be the ones enlightened by the voice of sincerity, who, embracing that sincerity, share a tacit understanding ? Their lives are strangely alike ; most took up arms and shed their blood, like swordsmen who circle in public view, causing shudders of pleasure at the sight of mortal combat. To lack men who shed their blood in public is a disaster for the people ; yet having them and ignoring them, even proceeding to kill them, is a greater disaster from which the people cannot recover... "The last ray", a book by the Russian author Korolenko, records how an old man teaches a boy to read in Siberia : “His book talked of the cherry and the oriole, but these didn't exist in frozen Siberia. The old man explained : It's a bird that sits on a cherry branch and carols its fine songs”. The youth reflected. Yes, amid desolation the youth heard the gloss of a man of foresight, although he had not heard the fine song itself. But the voice of foresight does not come to shatter China's desolation. This being so, is there nothing for us but reflection, simply nothing but reflection ? Ergänzung von Guo Ting : Byron behaved like violent weaves and winter wind. Sweeping away all false and corrupt customs. He was so direct that he never worried about his own situation too much. He was full of energy, and spirited and would fight to the death without losing his faith. Without defeating his enemy, he would fight till his last breath. And he was a frank and righteous man, hiding nothing, and he spoke of others' criticism of himself as the result of social rites instead of other's evil intent, and he ignored all those bad words. The truth is, at that time in Britain, society was full of hypocrites, who took those traditions and rites as the truth and called anyone who had a true opinion and wanted to explore it a devil. Ergänzung von Yu Longfa : Die Bezeichnung Mara stammt aus dem Indischen und bedeutet Himmelsdämon. Die Europäer nennen das Satan. Ursprünglich bezeichnete man damit Byron. Jetzt weist das auf alle jene Dichter hin, die zum Widerstand entschlossen sind und deren Ziel die Aktion ist, ausserdem auf diejenigen Dichter, die von der Welt nicht sehr gemocht werden. Sie alle gehören zu dieser Gruppe. Sie berichten von ihren Taten und Überlegungen, von ihren Schulen und Einflüssen. Das beginnt beim Stammvater dieser Gruppe, Byron, und reicht letztlich hin bis zu dem ungarischen Schriftsteller Petöfi. Alle diese Dichter sind in ihrem äusserlichen Erscheinungsbild sehr unterschiedlich. Jeder bringt entsprechend den Besoderheiten des eigenen Landes Grossartiges hervor, aber in ihrer Hauptrichtung tendieren sie zur Einheitlichkeit. Meistens fungieren sie nicht als Stimme der Anpassung an die Welt und der einträchtigen Freude. Sobald sie aus voller Kehle ihre Stimme erheben, geraten ihre Zuhörer in Begeisterung, bekämpfen das Himmlische und widersetzen sich den gängigen Sitten. Aber ihr Geist rührt auch tief an die Seelen der Menschen nachfolgender Generationen und setzt sich fort bis in die Unendlichkeit. Sie sind ohne Ausnahme vital und unnachgiebig und treten für die Wahrheit ein… Nietzsche lehnt den Wilden nicht ab, da er neue Lebenskraft in sich berge und gar nicht anders könne, als ehrlich zu sein. So stammt die Zivilisation denn auch aus der Unzivilisation. Der Wilde erscheint zwar roh, besitzt aber ein gütmütiges Inneres. Die Zivilisation ist den Blüten vergleichbar und die Unzivilisation den Knospen. Vergleicht man jedoch die Unzivilisation mit den Blüten, so entspricht die Zivilisation den Früchten. Ist die Vorstufe bereits vorhanden, so besteht auch Hoffnung. Sekundärliteratur Yu Longfa : Lu Xun befasst sich zwar nicht ausführlich mit Friedrich Nietzsche, aber auf der Suche nach dem 'Kämpfer auf geistigem Gebiet', dessen charakteristische Eigenschaften, besonders die Konfiguration des Übermenschen, macht er ausfindig. Lu Xun ist überzeugt, dass die Selbststärkung eines Menschen und der Geist der Auflehnung kennzeichnend für den Übermenschen sind. In Anlehnung an den Übermenschen zitiert er aus Also sprach Zarathustra : "Diejenigen, die auf der Suche nach den Quellen des Altertums alles ausgeschöpft haben, sind im Begriff, die Quellen der Zukunft, die neuen Quellen zu suchen. Ach, meine Brüder, die Schaffung des neuen Lebens und das Sprudeln der neuen Quellen in der Tiefe, das dürft wohl nicht weit sein !" Tam Kwok-kan : Earliest reference to Henrik Ibsen. This is the first Chinese article that discusses in a comprehensive manner the literary pursuits of the Byronic poets. Lu Xun ranks Ibsen as one of these poets and compares the rebellious spirit exemplified in Ibsen's drama to Byron's satanic tendency. Lu Xun had a particular liking for the play An enemy of the people, in which Ibsen presented his ideas through the iconoclast Dr. Stockmann, who in upholding truth against the prejudices of society, is attacked by the people. Lu Xun thought that China needed more rebels like Ibsen who dared to challenge accepted social conventions. By introducing Ibsen in the image of Dr. Stockmann, the moral superman, together with the satanic poets, Lu Xun believed that he could bring in new elements of iconoclasm in the construction of a modern Chinese consciousness. As Lu Xun said, he introduced Ibsen's idea of individualism because he was frustrated with the Chinese prejudice toward Western culture and with the selfishness popular among the Chinese. Chu Chih-yu : Lu Xun adapted for the greater part of Mara poetry his Japanese sources (Kimura Katataro), he also added some of his own comments and speculations. Guo Ting : Given Lu Xun's leading position in the Chinese literary field at that time, his defense of Byron was powerful and set the overarching tone for the time of Byron when he was first introduced to Chinese readers. Liu Xiangyu : On the power of Mara poetry itself is an expression of Byronism to 'speak out against the establisment and conventions' and to 'stir the mind'. Lu Xun criticized traditional Chinese culture and literature. |
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| 2 | 1908-2000 |
Henrik Ibsen : Rezeption in China. Tam Kwok-kan : Ibsen has been considered by many literary historians as the most important source, besides Goethe, of Western influence in modern Chinese literary thinking. Most of Ibsen's major plays have been translated and staged in China, and scholars in the field of modern Chinese intellectual history fully acknowledge the contribution Ibsen made to the May 4th movement that marked the beginning of modern Chinese culture. To the European critics, Ibsen belongs to the present and is mainly a dramatist, not a social critic. But in China, Ibsen is often considered a revolutonary figure and has been variously represented in Chinese politics in the past ninty years. The 19th-century critics tended to think of Ibsen's plays as stage reproductions of actual experiences in life. In the reception of Ibsen in both the East and the West, there have been different emphases, each of which employs the use of a different interpretive strategy. The two kinds of interpretation, Marxist-socialist on the one hand and aesthetic-formalist on the other, are the result of not only a difference in reception strategies, but also a difference in politics. In regarding Ibsen as a dramatist or as a social critic, the difference lies in the critics' choice of strategy whether or not there is the belief of correspondence between a dramatist's works and social reality. Ibsen's works were introduced to China much later than they were in Japan and in the countries in Western Europe and North America. China's nation-wide reception of Ibsen occured around the end of the 1910s and was necessarily affected by the coexistence of the moralist and socialist-Marxist codes in European interpretations of Ibsen. From the beginning, the modern Chinese theatre was a social and political theatre. Although there were no distinctively formed Ibsenite groups in China, there were dramatists, such as Hong Shen and Tian Han, who openly professed themselves 'Chinese Ibsens'. Ibsen's influence in China is manifested in two aspects : sociopolitical and artistic (both literary and theatrical). Ibsen was regarded by the Chinese critics and dramatists both as a social-realist and as a romantic playwright. The history of the reception of ibsen in China can be divided roughtly into four major periods : 1908-1927, 1928-1948, 1949-1976, and 1977-present. In the first period, Chinese interpretations of Ibsen were closely associated with social movements and were greatly influenced by the moralist code then prevalent in Europe. Ibsen's social influence was first seen in the advocycy of individualism and iconoclasm in the writings of Lu Xun and Hu Shi. The social movements in China gave the interpretation of Ibsens's plays a new political context by which the critics conveyed their messages to Chinese readers. Ibsen was hailed as a champion of individualism, uncompromising moralist, and advocate of feminism. The iconoclastic elements derived from Iben's plays were most valued in this period as a means of resistance against the traditioal moral system deeply rooted in China's confucian collectivism. One of the major reasons for introducing Ibsen to China was that the messages derived from his plays constituted a powerful attack on the conventional moral institutions in China. Ibsen was hailed as a figure of hope and new values. Chinese dramatists werde more attracted to his explosive themes than to his dramatic subtlety. Almost all the social problem plays in the early 1920s were modelled after Ibsen's plays, without considering the appropriateness of such an approach to the theatre. The influence became so powerful that even well established Chinese dramatists could not resist the temptation to imitate Ibsen, which at that time was considered by some critics as an act of contempt equivalent to plagiarism. The second period in the reception of Ibsen was accompanied by the gradual maturity of modern Chinese drama and literary criticism. Ibsen attracted the attention of more and more serious Chinese dramatists and critics, such as Xiong Foxi and Chen Zhice. Chinese dramatists gradually shifted their interest to the artistry in Ibsen's dram in the late 1920s when the zeal for social reform in China was in low tide. In the late 1920s and 1930s some Chinese critics called for a reconsideration of Ibsen from the perspective of art, still the general tendency was to moralize him, which was supported by the practical view that Ibsen's drama was useful for social reform in China. Unfortunately the war between China and Japan broke out and destroyed the hope of developing Chinese drama along a normal artistic path. Political considerations and the nationalist responsibility of saving China from disgrace and sufferings again became the first concern of serious, patriotic writers. The Chinese interest in Ibsen revived during the war years because of the need for a new dramatic form that could arouse the reader's emotional response. In a new context of oppression and invasion, the theme of A doll's house already interpreted as 'exploitation of women' was redefined as 'exploitation of Chinese women under foreign invasion'. Almost all the Chinese stage productions of A doll's house in the years from 1937 to 1945 were adaptations to serve as a nationalist discourse for the patriotic cause. The third period in the reception of Ibsen in China started in 1949 and ended around 1976. In these years, Chinese interpretations followed closely the footsteps of the Soviet bloc. Friedrich Engels's analysis of Ibsen's plays in terms of 'class struggle' and the redefinition of the 'Ibsenian concept of majority', which were considered necessarily reactionary with reference to 'the bourgeois class in the 19th-century semi-feudal Norwegian society'. Although social and political events similar to those depicted in Ibsen's social plays did not exist in China in these thirty years, Ibsen was still revered in terms of his historic importance as a critic of the bourgeois social system and thus was taken as politically useful to the new socialist system. The well-made dramatic conflicts in Ibsen's plays were taken as reflections of class struggle in capitalist society. Hence, for the Chinese Marxists every reading of Ibsen's social plays was a lession on the evils of capitalism. For Chinese dramatists, Ibsen's plays, redefined in the light of socialist realism, were excellent examples to learn how to reproduce class struggles as dramatic conflicts on the stage. The new social and political reality in China after 1976 allows Ibsen readers to see that there are alternatives to the vulgarized political doctrines in the interpretation of literature. There was in effect little literary criticism in the first thirty years of the People's republic. Government intervention in the interpretation of an author allowed little freedom beyond politics. The new political and social environment has given rise to the influx of the one-condemned 'Western bourgeois literary criticism' into socialist China. Chinese critics thus have an opportunity to come into contact with contemporary Western orientation in literary studies, resulting in the gradual adoption of the easthetic-formalist code. One of Ibsen's contributions to the Chinese theatre is the inception of a realistic stage. For many years, illusionistic acting in the fashion of Stanislavsky's style and Ibsen's realistic drama has been the main-stream in the modern Chinese theatre. Ibsen's first and obvious impact on the Chinese stage was upon the style of acting, the use of props and stage design : the first elements of external realistic technique. Ibsen was regarded as a realistic playwright in China mainly for the social implications of his plays, very seldom for the true-to-life presentation of his themes and even less often for the dramatic techniques, which enable his plays to be realistic. With regard to the stage conventions in contemporary China, Ibsen's social problem play and 'the fourth wall' mode of presentation, together with Stanislavky's acting style, have become the mainstream in Chinese theatre, which also affects the perspective of drama critics, who have gradually and unconsciously formed a fixed view of drama that excludes other possibilities of stage style. In the reception of Ibsen, the Chinese views had been subjected to influences from both the Anglo-American and socialist sources. While the socialist views emphasized social reference and class struggle, the Anglo-American views tended to stress the aesthetic values of Ibsen's works. Elisabeth Eide ; Neither Hu Shi nor Lu Xun ever evaluated Ibsen from an aesthetic point of view. Ibsen was constantly regarded as an ideological writer whose characters might be transformed into positive or negative stereotypes. The complexita of Ibsen's characters had to be reduced to schematically idealized stereotypes in order to function in the Chines society as generative models. The role of Nora could not be invested with sufficient positive elements to serve as an emblem for female emancipation in China. Realism is one of the elements that was underlined in the transmission of Ibsen's ideas, but it must not be regarded as originating with Ibsen. Ibsen was regarded as a bourgeois author, and Chinese writers who took up his views also set them in a bourgeois context. They emphasized elements in Ibsen's creative works that are associated with a liberal bourgeois society such as freedom and liberation. Hu Shi introduced his concept of Ibsenism in drama as well as in intellectual debate. The Chinese recrated the world that Ibsen had created and adapted it to Chinese circumstances. Ibsen's role was always that of an iconoclast. He was regarded as a representative of the new thought needed to transform the Chinese world. His dramatic version of topics such as heredity were taken as science dramatized. Ibsen represented ideology more than aestheticism in so far as his plays were evaluated from the point of view of what model or ideal his characters might serve in the formation of a new, liberal policy in China. He Chengzhou : The development of Chinese modern drama has been closely associated with the reception of Ibsen, which has undergone a process of widening vision of Ibsen from a realist, to a romantic and then to a symbolist. |
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| 3 | 1918 |
Hu, Shi. Yibusheng zhu yi [ID D26214]. Hu Shi schreibt : "Ibsenism ! This is a difficult ropic. I am not a specialist on Ibsen, how can I be qualified to write such an essay ? However, since we have to produce an Ibsen issue, and to introduce Ibsen in a spectacular manner to China, it is necessary to provide an essay on Ibsenism. Anyway, I will offer the Ibsenism I have in mind as an introduction to the special issue." "In Ibsen's drama, there is a prominent theme which states that society and the individual are in opposition and mutually harmful to each other. Society is aristocratic and will destroy individuality by force. It suppresses the individual's free will and independence. When individuality is lost, the spirit of freedom and independence are gone ; society will lose its vitality and will not progress. Ibsen reveals the real nature of the family and society. His purpose is to shock the readers and let them know that there are darker sides in the family and society so as to induce them to reform and revolt - this is Ibsenism. On the surface, it is destructive, but in reality, it is constructive, but in reality, it is constructive. It is like what a doctor does in his diagnosis of an illness : can we say that this is destructive ? Although Ibsen diagnoses many diseases, he is not willing to give prescriptions. He knows that human society is a very complex organization made up of inumerable small parts. Its diseases are of many types and there is no cure-all prescription. Therefore, he only diagnoses the symptoms and let the patien find the prescription that will suit his case." "Ibsen tells us a good way to protect the health of society. He seems to say : 'The health of the human body depends on the large number of white blood corpuscles which are always fighting with the different kinds of diseases. The health of society and the state in the same way relies on the numerous white blood corpuscles which are never satisfied and are always fighting against the evildoers. If we want to defend the health of society we need to have the white blood corpuscles like Dr. Stockman. When society has obtained the spirit of these white blood corpuscles, there is no way that it will not reform and progress." "Nora in A doll's house suddenly discovers that the family is a stage for monkey performances and she herself is one of the monkeys. She has the courage, and does not want to wear a mask, therefore she says goodby to the stage manager and jumps down from the stage to live her own life." "Mrs. Alving in Ghosts is a coward, thus she is persuaded by the pastor to return home and resume her role as a wife." Elisabeth Eide : Hu Shi's version of Ibsenism as a coherent doctrine consisted of three major elements : an attack on the traditional family system, a defence of individualism, a demand for acceptance of the position of a persecuted and reviled minorty. This was needed for a China that wanted to grow strong. Chinese critics from the 1930s have generally agreed that Ibsenism was an essential part of Hu Shi's philosophy of life. The basic premise of Hu's Ibsenism was his assertion, that Ibsen pitted the individual against society in an extreme and forceful manner. According to Hu, Ibsen attributed to society evil intentions that might not be deliberate, but were unavoidable. Hu claimed that society could not progress if it did not contain the yeast of the strong individual. His exposure, in plays like Ghosts and The wild duck, of the evil forces within society. His protest against all that was moribund in the old society was set in an artistically acceptable framework that made his exposition very forceful. His creation of strong individuals serving as fresh streams in a backwater and scapegoats for society's anger. His offer of a remedy that was sufficiently loose to be applicable also in China. Tam Kwok-kan : Hu Shi attacks the Confucian moral order as a dying institution in China. He cites Ibsen's revolutionary ideas in denouncing traditional Chinese institution of law, religion, and morality which are all based on the Confucian concept of role-self, and he regards them as social evils culminating in selfishness, slavishness, falsehood, and cowardice. The individual is seen as always being repressed by society, and Hu Shi thinks that only when traditional society collapses will the individual be freed from the repression of all traditional bondage. Hu Shi believed that the events described in Ibsen's plays have correspondence in the real world. Realism is not treated as a technique with the purpose of creating illusions. Realism was regarded by many Chinese dramatists shallowly as a reflection on stage of an event that could be found in real life. In terms of acting, this kind of external realism has the advantage of breaking away from the traditional Chinese theatre, which is symbolic and impressionistic in style. Hu Shi's interpretation of Nora's decision to leave home was influenced by George Bernard Shaw. He interpreted Nora as a feminist work and argued that Nora suddenly discovered that the family was a stage for monkey performances and that she herself was simply one of the performers. Hu Shi further said that Nora had 'the courage to tear off the mask, say goodby to the stage manager and jump down from the stage to live her own life, but on the other hand Mrs. Alving in Ghosts was a coward and thus she was persuaded by the pastor to return home and resume her role as a housewife'. He Chengzhou : That he applauds Ibsen, says Hu, is because "he tells us the truth, describing the various evil situations of society so that we can have a close look at them". Hu Shi summarizes the subjects Ibsen has discussed in his plays, namely family, the social power factors (law, religon and morals) and the relationship between individual and society. At almost every point, his summary ends with an uncontrollable angry abuse of the related Chinese reality. In the last section of his essay, Hu Shi explains explicitly what he thinks Ibsenism means. "We are moved by Ibsen's descriptions of family and society and realize that our family and society are in facto so currupted that reform becomes really indispensable. And this is Ibsenism." |
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| 4 | 1949 |
Xiao, Qian. Pei'er Jinte : yi bu qing suan ge ren zhu yi de shi ju [ID D26256]. Xiao schreibt : "Ibsen is no longer suitable for us, not only because he belonged to far away Northern Europe. Yet as a forerunner of our profession [writers], we cannot deny that he had observed the organization of society with critical eyes and pointed out its rotten parts. His weakness lay in the fact that he just attacked the corruptions of society but did not analyse the economic causes. Therefore he recongnized only the existence of the individual, but did not see that there were the masses. He advocated the improvement of the individual, but neber that of the environment. Ibsen was spiritually an anarchist. Today China has stepped into socialism, in which everything is put under organization and becomes part of a larger syste, from the anarchism of thirty years ago, which produced a spirit of rebellion in favour of individualism.. We have inherited from Ibsen the poisonous idea of perfecting oneself without much care for the others. As for our self-reform, can Ibsen contribute something to compensate the losses he has caused us ? Yes, Ibsen can. He gives us Peer Gynt which has a grander atmosphere, profounder significance and higher artistic accomplishment than A doll's hous and An enemy of the people. Tam Kwok-kan : Xiao believes that Ibsenism is no longer needed in China, not only because Ibsen was a writer of the last century, but also because he belongs to the faraway Northern Europe, where the society is essentially different from that in China. As a forerunner of literary realism, Ibsen, Xiao said, examined the organization of society with critical eyes and pointed out the roots of its evilness. Xiao believed that Ibsen's weakness lay in the fact that he attacked only the surface corruptions of society and did not analyze their economic causes. He therefore attacked Ibsen for his advocacy of individualism. He thought that Ibsen recognized only the importance of the individual and not of the masses, because Ibsen failed to relate the victimization of the individual to the injustice hidden in the social structure. Xiao claimed that Ibsen's play Peer Gynt should be read as a critique of individualism. According to Xiao Qian, the play is a caricature of selfishness as exemplified in the self-centered Peer Gynt. Xiao asserted that the object of attack throughout Peer Gynt was the idea of individualism. |
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| 5 | 1981 |
Xiao, Qian. Yibusheng de Pei'er Jinte [ID D26267]. Tam Kwok-kan : Xiao Qian completely revised his view of the play Peer Gynt and admired it as a remedy for the lack of individuality among the Chinese. In 1949 Xiao Qian thought that Peer Gynt was an attack on individualisms and could serve as a weapon against bourgeois ideas in the intellectual reform movement. In 1978 he read the play from a different perspective. Expressing his contempt of the Gang of Four in 1978 when he completed the Chinese translation of acts one and five of the play. He considered it a ridicule of political opportunists, the play's theme provided a contrast between the human and the devil : "a human being shouls have his own self, have beliefs and principles, and is not opportunistic, whereas a devil does not and will avoid difficulties and yield to temptation. The devil's judgement is purely based on advantages, not on the consideration of what is right and what is wrong". In 1981, Xiao was able to notice that all his previous interpretations of the play and of Ibsen, were very much affected by his personal emotions and political naiveté which, he now thought, was not a correct attitude toward a literary work. Refuting his previous position, Xiao recommended a re-reading of Ibsen in terms of a broader philosophical perspective that could shed light on ideals in life and personal integrity. |
Cited by (1)
| # | Year | Bibliographical Data | Type / Abbreviation | Linked Data |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2000- | Asien-Orient-Institut Universität Zürich | Organisation / AOI |
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